Clients

This guest post is written by Andy Hardy, Managing Director EMEA for Code42. It was featured as an opinion piece on Computable on 12 June, 2015.

Today’s threat landscape is ever expanding, increasingly complex and consistently evolving. No business can ever be 100% secure in this environment, so the concept of building a bigger, stronger security perimeter offers no guarantees. The modern CIO and CISO realise that detection and remediation must now take precedence. They must form a key part of an enterprise security strategy, especially as security breaches are more a question of when rather than if.

The enlightened CIO and CISO, however, go one step beyond detection. They understand that endpoint data backup goes beyond just shifting data from A to B. In the current enterprise landscape, with its sophisticated security needs and mobile workforce, IT and security leaders realise that endpoint data protection is about giving companies real insight into corporate data. This includes a view of what’s happening on individual endpoint devices, no matter where they are, in near real-time.

To this end, today’s innovative and proactive CIOs and CISOs look for tools that can do the following:

Deliver near real-time insight into data. The majority of enterprise data today is held on devices outside of the data centre. It is found at the endpoint – desktops, laptops and other mobile devices – with users that are constantly on the road, outside of the traditional enterprise perimeter. This makes data not only vulnerable but also hard to keep track of. The right endpoint data protection tool, such as CrashPlan from Code42, will allow the enterprise not only to protect data by backing it up, but also to find out when it is created, changed or deleted, by whom and from where. The ultimate solution does this silently from the cloud, in the background without ever asking the end user to proactively engage with it – it just needs to run seamlessly.

Actively prevent access to sensitive information. With increasing reports of data breaches in the enterprise, data needs to be protected at all costs. Today, the CISO will admit that multi-factor authentication is the way forward. The best endpoint backup and sync/share tools use it to add a layer of security that makes access by attackers more difficult. Yet, only 37% of today’s organisations use multi-factor authentication, leaving themselves at risk.

Go beyond compliance to regulation. With true globalisation of businesses and the rapid adoption of cloud services, endpoint data protection tools also have a role to play in helping you to go beyond compliance and meet regulation. Compliance alone is not enough. Take the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This regulation will harmonise and strengthen the current data protection laws in place across the EU member states. Essentially, it will mandate the way in which data is handled and where it is kept. Simply contracting with a US company that has built data centres in Europe will not keep your data safe. This is due to the USA PATRIOT Act. If requested, your data centre provider may still have to hand over your company’s data to third parties, such as the US National Security Agency (NSA). Your endpoint data protection solution should allow that to happen, of course. But with the right solution, such as CrashPlan, you hold the encryption keys, not your cloud data storage provider. Therefore, without your consent and individual access keys, third parties such as the NSA may be able to access your data in de-regulated form, but will not be able to decipher it. This will keep your business and your customers comfortable and secure – all while helping you to meet local / EU data privacy regulations.

Commit to constant innovation. Whatever endpoint data protection product your business chooses, you have to ensure it is, as you are, committed to innovation. Your service provider should constantly be developing its product, with the key focus on driving better, more connected security throughout your organisation

Security for the modern business is of course about more than just the tools. Endpoint security should not just be seen as preventative. Instead it allows businesses to be competitive in the marketplace and unleashes their true potential. How can a simple security measure do that? Well, the reality is that having the right strategy, tools and people in place will free up the CIO and CISO from one more burden. This will give them time to help deliver new projects that could give your business a competitive edge in the market. They can focus on enabling the new devices your business needs, BYOD or virtualisation projects they need to undertake – all without worrying how they will protect the data once it has left the enterprise perimeter.

Ultimately, the right endpoint data protection and security tools in combination with a forward-thinking security strategy is an opportunity for the CIO and CISO to step into the light and drive for the modern business.

Read about Code42’s choice for EvoSwitch to accompany their European expansion strategy here.

EvoSwitch is the preferred IT gateway to collocation services to customers from all over the world. Recently we welcomed Huawei Technologies as a new customer to our AMS1 data center in the Amsterdam region.

Huawei Technologies, with its global headquarters in Shenzhen, China, is a leading telecom solutions provider. Through continuous customer-centric innovation, Huawei has established end-to-end advantages in Telecom Network Infrastructure, Application & Software, Professional Services and Devices. With comprehensive strengths in fixed network, wireless and IP technologies, Huawei has gained a leading position in the All-IP convergence age.

Huawei’s products and solutions have been deployed in over 100 countries and have served 45 of the world’s top 50 telecom operators, as well as one third of the world’s population. We sat down with Paul Broekhuizen, Sales Director at Huawei Technologies Europe, to find out why Huawei chose EvoSwitch, and how they leverage carrier-neutral and multi-tenant data center solutions as a building block in their own solutions portfolio.

Could you tell us something about Huawei and its product service portfolio?

“We provide independent, controllable IT infrastructure with high security and reliability, such as servers, storage devices, networks, security systems, and cloud computing, to ensure the security of policing of data sharing, service synergy and provide reliable services.” says Paul Broekhuizen. “Huawei is the only vendor that provides an end-to-end cloud DC solution, covering servers (entry-level, mid-range, and high-level), storage systems, network devices, and security devices. It also includes the Huawei-developed virtualization platform and converged management of a cloud DC.” Could you describe Huawei’s selection process for

EvoSwitch and why Huawei decided to collocate at EvoSwitch?

Huawei has a very strict selection process for its partners with whom we work together in building solutions for our customers. EvoSwitch’s strong focus on sustainability and renewable energy sources, their flexibility in providing us the space and 24×7 support we require are but some of the reasons that drew us to EvoSwitch. As we are already actively serving customers out of the AMS1 data center, we have the first proof in hand that we made the right choice.

What type of customers will you serve from EvoSwitch’s data center?

“At our core, we are a hardware vendor, that builds solutions out of our own range of products. In some cases though, our customers ask of us to manage the designed solution. We rely on our partners to bring the specific parts together we do not have in-home as a service. EvoSwitch’s AMS1 data center is key, because it is where we build and our partners manage these bespoke solutions for our customers.”

What are Huawei’s primary goals for 2014 in working with EvoSwitch?

“We’re looking to expand the relationship with our current partners and move end users on request from their private environment into the EvoSwitch AMS1 data center. We’re also focused on providing Disaster Recovery environments for our customers. At the same time, we are growing our relationships with European hosting providers to help them build cloud environments based on OpenStack.”

What is your long-term data center strategy? “We see the following major trends in the future of the corporate data center: We see increased demand for what we refer to as Virtualized Elastic Resources, the continued move to virtualize servers and the beginnings of private cloud environments and away from SANs. We see being low-carbon and energy efficient more and more as a hard requirement for our hardware that goes into the data center. We expect that Intelligent Unified Management and Control will become a hot topic, as IT infrastructure will grow to support growing sets of data across various systems and more and more public or hybrid clouds. To close, we see that the growing need and demand for standards-compliant security will make it more difficult for Enterprise customers to maintain their data centers in-home in some cases. This will create a shift towards the neutral, multi-tenant data centers that have been built around strict certifications and standards.”

As a data center server provider, innovation in energy management is a key distinguisher. Reducing energy consumption is a main driver not only from a corporate responsibility point of view, but also from a competitive angle. The modular data center design at EvoSwitch has proven to be a true winner when we look at reduction of energy consumption. The main contributor is the reduction of power that is required for the adiabatic cooling system in use.

Besides the technical innovation on the cooling units, tight management of capacity and load distribution helps to bring down the PUE values even further. Optimizing the load per data center module quickly brings down the load to a required optimum for our cooling systems. To achieve this, daily monitoring and analyzing is vital.

We are aware that data center providers consume a lot of energy. Therefore, it is also essential to look at the type of energy that we are using. The power requirement at EvoSwitch is catered by sustainable resources based on hydroelectric power and wind energy. Certificates by our electricity supplier guarantee that electricity is generated from renewable sources, thus reducing our carbon footprint.

As the demand for power from data centers will continue to grow, we at EvoSwitch strongly feel it is our responsibility to focus on energy management and innovation. The fact that we have done so for the last 7 years provides us with a great competitive edge. The more energy efficient we are, the less we impact our environment, and the less our customers pay for their energy bills–creating way for a win-win situation for all.

We met Steve Pit, COO at Voiceworks (one of EvoSwitch’s many telecom service provider customers), to discuss the services Voiceworks provides, and the role EvoSwitch plays in the delivery of their service portfolio. We also discussed Voiceworks’ future growth plans. Steve joined Voiceworks in 2012 after having spent more than five years at Easynet in various international roles in customer operations.

Welcome Steve, and thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Tell us a little bit about Voiceworks.

Thanks. Voiceworks, active since 2005, is a leader in innovation when it comes to the development of integrated fixed, mobile, and web-based communications. Voiceworks is, in the Netherlands, the only provider with an in-house developed web-based communications suite, VoIP cloud offering, and full MVNO mobile network–all integrated into one solution. This enables our customers to communicate in new, innovative, yet reliable ways.

What type of customers do you typically serve?

Our customers are typically SMEs for our fixed telephony services. But the Fixed Mobile Convergence attracts more larger corporate accounts. Even working over multiple sites or away from their desks or offices, people can be easily reached.

Last summer we announced Voiceworks Reach, which gives full control to the end user with multiple phone numbers on a single mobile device. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a trend that sees employees juggle multiple devices. Voiceworks Reach allows them to use their work and private mobile numbers and one fixed number on one mobile device and program how each number is used for outgoing calls, as well as route incoming calls and messages.”

Tell us about the infrastructure you have in place to support your service portfolio.

We run our own network from our own cloud, which we built across four data centers in the Netherlands. EvoSwitch plays an important part in our network; we interconnect our network from AMS1 with other telecom operators.”

Why did Voiceworks decide to colocate at EvoSwitch?

To us, the choice of a data center is mission critical. We chose EvoSwitch because of the strong presence of network service providers, which enable us to right-size our interconnection needs. EvoSwitch’s carrier neutrality ensures that we can easily add new providers when necessary.

Apart from serving our interconnection needs, EvoSwitch also stood out for us for the cold/hot aisle concepts they use as part of their cooling techniques, and the spacious cabinets they offer as standard. Their commitment to reducing their and our CO2 footprint is something we identify with and support. Finally, their reception is excellent. Whether night or day, our technicians are always met with friendly, supportive staff on site.

What are Voiceworks’ plans for the future?

We are looking at expansion internationally. We see opportunities for growth across the border. Together with our indirect channel partners, we are exploring these opportunities and expect to announce further news shortly. As to our service portfolio, we are constantly innovating and developing new services. In terms of these activities, we will most likely inform you further soon as well. Make sure you follow us on Twitter (@voiceworksnl) or LinkedIn for the latest news.

In order to deliver the best possible service, EvoSwitch works with various IT partners, including IT infrastructure specialist Qi ict – with whom we’ve been working successfully for over two years.

We recently caught up with Rik van Winzum, Qi ict’s director of strategy and businesses development, to discuss the partnership.

Rik, tell us a bit more about Qi ict.
Rik: “As a system integrator we operate in areas of storage, security, networks and connectivity. We integrate solutions from different manufacturers into one overall offering and provide solutions to companies in various sectors, such as the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, the public sector and the broadcasting sector.

“Our motto is ‘Living Uptime’. Every activity within our organization is focused on ensuring the highest possible uptime of our customers’ IT infrastructures. We make sure that our customers’ equipment is always up and running and that we have spare equipment which can be rolled out on location whenever needed. In the case of a technical fault, we transfer the configuration of the equipment at the time of the fault to the spare equipment. As a result, we’re able to minimize down-time for our clients.”

How did your partnership with EvoSwitch come into being?Rik: “For our services we require data centers with high uptime. We came into contact with EvoSwitch two years ago when looking for an alternative data center location for one of our customers. The AMS1 data center of EvoSwitch in Haarlem was very conveniently located for that customer and at the time, EvoSwitch happened to be looking for partners in the field of system integration as well. We were very impressed by the size of the halls, EvoSwitch’s portfolio and the green characteristics of the company during our first tour through the data center.

“We’re very aware that green entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important. For example: a client of ours recently chose one particular solution because of its highly efficient equipment, which consumes very little energy.”

Which factors are important for you when choosing a data center?
Rik: “We offer our customers ‘twin data center structures’, which means we offer them an alternative location if any faults occur in their own data center. Thus, the uptime of a data center is an essential pre-condition for us. On top of that, the location is important because we offer our services including fiber. The longer the fiber, the more expensive the link. Therefore, it’s important that the primary data center is not too far from the secondary data center.

Furthermore, EvoSwitch is a very friendly partner to do business with and has all the important certificates, such as the NEN, PCI and ISO certificates. For some of our customers, these certificates are required in order to be able to do business. EvoSwitch ensures that all quality and security requirements are met.”

What are the results of your collaboration so far?Rik: “Several leads have come to us via EvoSwitch, and vice versa. Our experience has been that our customers are sold on EvoSwitch just as quickly as we were when they visit the data center. One example of a client whom we’ve been able to welcome thanks to EvoSwitch is, a leading supplier of heating equipment and installation material with over 50 facilities throughout the country. In many cases, customers experience faults and suffer down-time before they opt for a twin data center structure. This particular customer however, decided to work on their disaster recovery scenario proactively.”
What makes the twin data center structure so profitable?
Rik: “We have noticed a shift in the general trend surrounding the availability of infrastructures with the arrival of flexible working: availability of IT infrastructure is becoming increasingly important and more and more companies demand 24/7 access to their data. With a twin data center structure, companies are working towards a situation in which they can switch from their primary to their secondary data center in real time. In order to guarantee such high uptime, you need a reliable partner.”

Last month we installed a new server. While this new hardware is great news for us nerds, some may see it as running slightly counter to our green commitment. Our preference is to optimize all our equipment to extend the useful life of the hardware. But now it really was time for a new server.

In order to alleviate our somewhat mixed feelings about this new addition to our array of hardware, we chose to travel by electric car to the data center in order to install the equipment. Since it was launched in Amsterdam some months ago, an electric Smart car sharing scheme has become very popular among several employees of Greenhost. The driving range of an electric Smart car proved to be more than adequate for a return trip to Haarlem

The server, which just about fit in the trunk, is an IBM X3550 M3 server with 144GB memory and 8 CPU cores. These types of machine

are used for our virtualization layer and form the basic building blocks of our network. The machines are fitted with an in-memory file system for the virtualization software, thereby doing away with the need for hard disks (and yielding additional energy savings). The virtual machines (with SAN or NAS storage) that will run on this hardware will eventually be responsible for hosting websites, databases or e-mail.

We opted for IBM systems due to their low energy usage and the minimal amount of heavy metals and other toxic substances in their hardware. Additionally, IBM is a class A brand and supplies ultra-reliable hardware.

For more information on Greenhost and their environmental thoughts and vision please visit their website or contact their sales department!